


Restless Sleep

by msgeniuspa



Series: Starcrossed [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Star Wars: The Force Awakens Spoilers, i have an overall plan but i'm just winging the specifics, nothing's edited lol, there's supposed to be smut at some point but my characters are running away from me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-22 21:07:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6094054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msgeniuspa/pseuds/msgeniuspa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As events tumble into motion, Captain Izzy finds her faith in the First Order tested.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Waiting

**Author's Note:**

> Part 2 of my series! Thank you all so much for reading! As always, comments, feedback, and critiques are always welcomed and appreciated!

The bridge erupted with activity as Hux barked out orders.  "Plot a course through hyperspace to Jakku, but wait for my order.  We don't want to be breathing down the pilot's neck until we know what the Resistance is after.  Have Captain Phasma assemble a raiding party.  Get me everything we can get from that transmission and all of the intelligence we have on Jakku.  Do we have any assets already on the ground?  Are there any known enemies based there?  I want these answers five minutes ago!"  He turned to Izzy and Kylo Ren.  "You two have thirty minutes to dream up any other useful information."

Izzy nodded, then felt Kylo's hand at the small of her back.  "The room," he rumbled.

They moved quickly, but all Izzy could hear was her pulse roaring in her ears.  She didn't yet understand how or why, but she knew that this Jakku thing was going to be the biggest thing to happen to the First Order in a long time.

In the room, Kylo didn't turn on the lights, leaving only the pedestal with Darth Vader's helmet glowing softly.  "If we meditate together," he said removing his mask, "both of us should be able to reach further."  He sat cross legged on the bed and patted the mattress in front of him.

Heart pounding, she climbed up, trying to slow her breathing.  Kylo was right, she could feel the Force swirling around and through them both, could feel herself using Kylo like a slingshot for her own perception.  The little fighter plane hadn't been far from the Finalizer when it received the transmission, and there was still an echo of the pilot's thoughts.  The coordinates.  A map?  Rumors.  A hope.  A _name_.

"Lor San Tekka," she and Kylo said in unison.

"Do you know who he is?" Izzy asked, seeing the stony expression on Kylo's face.

But before he could answer, the hyperspace alarm sounded.  Kylo gathered her into his arms as they braced for the jump, but she hardly felt it as he covered her mouth with his, kissing her deeply.  He didn't break it until they jolted out into the Western Reaches.

"This is it," he smiled broadly, scrambling off the bed and retrieving his helmet.  "This is the break I've been hunting for."  He snapped the mask into place, his voice low and ominous.  "The tide of the war is about to turn."

In the hangar, Hux was on a raised walkway speaking with a fully armored Phasma.  "Well?" he asked, turning to them.

"The pilot is meeting with an old human man, Lor San Tekka.  There's an unconfirmed suspicion that he has the map to Skywalker," Kylo informed them.

Hux wasn't impressed.  "We're going through this on a hunch?"

"Sir, if I may," Phasma volunteered, "if the map is on Jakku, it will be much easier for us to retrieve it now than let it go to wherever the Resistance is currently hiding."

"I know you're right, Captain," Hux scowled.  "There are just too many unknowns for my liking.  Don't come back empty handed."

Izzy felt very small as Kylo turned to leave, lightly brushing a gloved finger over her hand.  Phasma saluted Hux sharply, then clapped arms with Izzy before following.  Kylo's ship and several troop transports were ready for departure, and as the ship's ramp closed, Izzy reached out for Kylo.  She felt him for as long as she could, but her reach ended before the group was even out of site, bound for the orange planet below.

It wasn't until Hux placed his hand on her shoulder that she realized she was white-knuckling the railing.  "Go take a shower, Captain.  I'll send someone for you if they return before you do."

Izzy let out the breath she didn't know she'd been holding.  "Thank you, sir."

Running her fingers through her hair on her way back to the room, she felt how gunked it actually was from the dried pool water.  She had been running around the ship for well over an hour like this.  But she was coming down off her adrenaline high and was too tired to feel embarrassed.  The shower was a blur, and she immediately dropped onto the bed, covering her eyes with her arm.  She just felt so drained.  But more comfortable in her own skin than she'd felt in months.  Without looking, she reached out for her bureau, and then a set of clothes was in her hand.  Despite her exhaustion and worry, a smile spread across her face.  It really was intoxicating.  Ever since she had gotten the hang of it, she had used the Force pretty much whenever the opportunity presented itself, even for something as mundane as picking up and setting down the soap in the shower.

She dressed in the loose black tunic and trousers and made her way to the nearest coffee maker.  The officer's rec room, in this case.  It was empty, everyone else left on the ship currently at their stations.  As she waited for her cup to brew, Izzy reflected back on those first conversations she had had with Kylo here.  She never could have guessed that this was where they all would be mere months later.

She took her coffee back down to the hanger.  She knew it was still too soon, they were probably just arriving at the village.  Still, she sat on a crate, settling in to meditate, her eyes on the hangar entrance.  Nearly an hour passed, then just as before, she saw them before she felt them.  She leapt to her feet as Hux entered the hangar, standing beside her.

"What are the preliminary reports?" she asked him, unable to look away from the approaching ships.

"They confirmed that the map was there but were unable to recover it.  Light casualties.  It seems that every single villager was a Resistance agent."  There was a sharp squeaking noise as Izzy's grip tightened on the rail.  Had she be looking at Hux, she would have seen him side eye her, seen the muscle in his jaw jump as his teeth clenched.  "Neither Captain Phasma nor Kylo Ren are listed on the preliminary casualty reports."

Izzy nodded, her jaw tight.  "Thank you, sir."

There was a moment of silence as they waited.  "You've never been this close to the front lines, have you, Captain?" Hux finally asked.

Izzy let out a long exhale, hoping she would breathe out some of her tension with it.  She didn't.  "No, sir.  After action replacement supplies have been the most action I've ever seen."

"It never gets less nerve wracking," Hux told her quietly.  "You just develop a better mask so that others can't see how worried you are.  Because every single time you give an order to someone else, every single time your people leave your sight, you have lost your control but none of the responsibility."

Izzy didn't have time to respond as the ships touched down inside the hangars.  Stormtroopers filed off their transports, carrying the wounded to the medics on standby, unloading their gear.  Izzy saw Phasma walk down the gangway of Kylo's ship, met the eyes of her mask and returned her nod as she disappeared in to the activity to oversee her troopers.  Her dramatic red cape was scorched and darkened.

Then two stormtroopers followed, half dragging a shackled man whose dark mussed hair shone with blood, Kylo behind them.  The man was injured and off-balance, but still managed to look up at her and Hux, his eyes quickly appraising Hux's rank.  Then they flitted to her, and he winked, a cocksure smile sitting comfortably in his dirtied face.  _Confidence._ Resistance scum.

Izzy looked to Kylo who nodded behind his mask then viciously kicked the man in the back of the knee, flooring him.  The stormtroopers never missed a step, dragging him until he regained his feet.  "Take him to the interrogation chamber.  Prepare him for me."

He split off from them and took the stairs up to the walk way two at a time, stopping just short of Izzy as if he had just noticed Hux.  "The prisoner knows where the map is.  I'll have him talking before the end of the day."

Izzy reached out, laid her hand on his arm.  "Break him," she said, still feeling the revulsion from the man's audacity, grounding herself on Kylo's physical presence.

"Indeed," Hux agreed.  "Don't stop at the map.  I want to know _everything_ this man knows."

Kylo nodded then turned to Izzy and lowered his voice.  "Phasma may need someone to talk to."  And then he was gone, Hux beside him.

And speak of the devil, Phasma was walking up the stairs now, her boots clanging on the metal.  _Distress._ "What's wrong?" Izzy asked.

Her helmet turned to look back down at the troopers.  "FN-2187.  This was his first time in the field and he didn't handle himself the way I would have expected.  I think he actually might need reconditioning."

Unease twisted at Izzy's stomach.  "Is there anything I can do?"

She heard a hard exhale of a laugh from behind Phasma's mask.  "You can rustle up a bottle of wine and meet for drinks in my room tonight."

"It has been a while," Izzy said, forcing a smile.

"Then I'll see you then."

And then Izzy was alone on that raised walkway, casting her mind about for something to occupy her.  Meditation, she settled on.  Something was pulling at the corners of her mind, a ray of light cutting through shadows.


	2. Event Horizon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woowww sorry for the delay lol, my offline life exploded into highly dramatic fragments. but here's chapter 2!

Izzy could feel herself deflating as she left the hangar.  She had been running off of adrenaline and anxiety for most of the day and had missed her midday meal.  She wanted to eat and then sleep, but something was still making her anxious, crackling just beneath her skin.  Her stomach growled as she made her way to the officers' mess, but no one was around to hear it.  The _Finalizer_ was overturned with activity as it recovered from the mission and prepared for further action, but the people aboard were the cream of the crop and the best trained, so everything was running smoothly.  The mess hall was mostly empty as they were between shift meals, but a table was set out along a wall with nonperishable snacks.  Izzy wasn't even sure what she grabbed, though, just that it took the edge off of her hunger.

She needed to meditate, and Hux's executive dining room was closer than her room, so that's where she went.  As usual, she had the room to herself.  The heavy door sealed off the noise of the ship's activity, leaving her in silence.  The windowed wall faced the planet, and Izzy took a moment to bask in the view.  The dessert covered the entire visible surface, soft and orange.  A thin ribbon of blue ringed the planet, its atmosphere.  There was something compelling about the color.  When Izzy closed her eyes, she thought she could see it slicing through the blackness, thought she could feel a hum coming from it.

Shaking her head to clear it, she settled into "her" spot on the floor.  Looking out over the planet below, she let her eyes unfocus as her consciousness drifted back into her mind and then expanded beyond her body.  Something felt out of balance on the ship, so she roved out, searching.  Down to the interrogation rooms, two junior intelligence officers were working the prisoner, trying to get him to talk by conventional methods.  He was _scared._ But also _defiant._ Izzy felt his resolve to not tell them anything, but First Order intelligence were the best trained interrogators in the Galaxy.  Kylo's mind brushed against hers as he watched also, scanning surface thoughts.  This man had been the pilot of the X-wing, the one who had received the intercepted transmission.  He could lead them straight back to the Resistance base.  But for now, he was going to fight.

Izzy moved on, drifting to Phasma as she met with FN-2187.  _Disappointment, frustration, conflict_ from her.  _Fear, insecurity, horror_ from him.  Izzy dipped into his recent memories, the raid on the village.  The villagers had opened fire on the troopers almost before the ramps of the transports had lowered.  He had seen so many of his fellow stormtroopers shot down around him.  Fire, screams, blood streaked armor.  Izzy felt righteous fury build within her as she watched FN-2003 die through FN-2187's eyes.  But he felt no need to avenge his fallen squad mate?  Phasma was right, the boy did need reconditioning.

With a long exhale, Izzy let herself expand and drift away, opening herself to the Force.  Time lost meaning.  Visions flashed through her mind, but most too brief or too obscure to hold any meaning for her, but she thought she saw familiar faces.  Or perhaps, familiar features?

The planet turned beneath her as the hours stretched on.  _Anguish_ rippled surged from the interrogation rooms at one point, the prisoner finally breaking under Kylo's barrage.  Izzy closed her eyes and focused.  Poe Dameron, Resistance pilot, son of rebels.  General Organa's lapdog.  That wasn't hyperbole, he would do anything to please the woman, a victim of her cult of personality.  But Izzy was wrong.  Dameron hadn't broken.  Not yet.  Only cracked.  But he would crumble soon enough.  Eventually it faded.  The map was in a droid back on the planet.  Hux would take over the search.

Then suddenly, like a bolt of lighting, anxiety coursed through Izzy.  She didn't even realize she was standing until she was falling, hitting her elbow on the table.  The pain brought her back to the here and now.  Something big was about to happen.  She exited the room into the hall as a communications officer was passing.  "Where is the General?" she asked.

"A meeting with Supreme Leader Snoke," the man said, puzzled.  He looked her over, recognition dawning on his face.  "I think Kylo Ren is on the bridge, ma'am."

No, not Kylo.  "Commander Odara?"

"The main hangar, inventorying what was spent on the raid."

Izzy was moving before the sentence had finished.  The dining room and hangar were relatively close, but they had never felt so far apart.  Finally, _finally_ , Izzy got to the hangar, and Odara was there, safe and whole on that raised walk way.

"Captain," she smiled warmly, seeing Izzy approach.  "What brings you down here?"

"I have a bad feeling," Izzy said.  "I need to get you out."

Odara's brow knitted.  "Well, if something's going to happen, shouldn't we sound the alarm?"

The words were barely out of her mouth when a TIE fighter lurched forward out of its bay, still tethered by its charging cable.  At first there was confusion, some techs jogged towards the craft to try to help.  Then the gun turret swiveled to life.  Everything moved as if in slow motion as blaster fire erupted.  Izzy saw the turret swing towards the catwalk, saw it fire.  She felt herself reach for Odara as if a passenger in her own body, felt her push the other woman away.  Felt the bolt tear through her side, a graze, but still powerful enough to knock her back over the ledge.

Izzy hit the ground hard.  She wasn't sure what hurt more, her side or her shoulder where she landed.  "Medic!" she heard Odara cry out above her, but her vision was already fading.  Her head dropped to the side just in time to see the wayward TIE fighter zip out of the hanger.  _Sorry, Phasma_ , she thought.  _Rain check on that wine night._


	3. Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry i'm taking so long between updates, lots of things are happening all at once offline. and izzy's not helping, lol, she was NOT supposed to get shot last chapter, so i had to figure out a new way to get her to the end of this story.

Izzy was swimming, spinning although her eyes were closed.  She figured she had painkillers in her system, the way her entire left side felt numb, but she couldn't quite remember why she needed painkillers.

A flash of green.  Green and blue lightsabers in tandem for years, torn apart by tragedy.  A green lightsaber clashing with red and such _love_.  A green blast from a TIE-fighter gun- ahh, there it was.

Through the haze, Izzy remembered the bolt tearing through her side, a pain so profound that even without the drugs it would seem dreamlike.  Was Odara safe, though?  Izzy could remember shoving the woman out of the way.  She assumed she succeeded, she was pretty sure she pushed her to the right, and it was her left side that was hit, so....

_"Medic!"_ Had that been Odara?  Oh, wow, Izzy hoped that call had been for her and not for Odara herself.  She had had such a deep feeling of dread, and when she'd heard that Odara was in the hangar, it had all clicked into place, but hopefully she had reacted in time.

_Hope_.  There it was again, that bright blue white light slicing through the back of her mind.  It burned in a way that all the drugs in the Galaxy couldn't quell.  Izzy didn't know if her physical body winced, but she certainly felt as if she did.  But why would hope hurt like this?  Like a blow to the chest that shook her to her core.  Right and terrible all at once.

_"Supreme Leader Snoke was explicit...."_ Hux...?

_"They're obviously skilled at committing high treason."_ Kylo.

They sounded as if they were next to her, but Izzy somehow knew that they were on the bridge.  She wasn't on the bridge.  At least, she was pretty sure.  Most sensible place for her to be injured and drugged was medical.

_"My men are exceptionally trained - programmed from birth-!"_

Izzy remembered the school back home on Order Six, the yellow flowers in the meadow.  The old women in rocking chairs, sewing their sachets of herbs and flowers.  Speaking the old tongue the children weren't allowed to learn.  Once they called the town Willem.  It caught on.  It was less than two days until an assembly was held on those commons, a speaker extolling the wonders of the Order, how much better it was than the old days.  Izzy never saw two of those old ladies again.  The flowers were crushed and trampled where the stage had been set.

_"Careful, Ren.  That your 'personal interests' not interfere with orders from Leader Snoke...."_

A leather glove stroking her cheek.  Izzy was aware of that like lightning, though she was beginning to feel that her sense of time was distorted.

The voice of a medical droid.  _"Her left shoulder was dislocated and her clavicle fractured in the fall.  But the primary wound, of course, is the trauma to her side.  The bacta bandages are keeping her stable, but the damage is extensive.  She needs the tanks in a main hospital, although there is a strange current running through the bacta that may be interfering with its effectiveness."_

_"Starkiller is closest."_   Hux again.  Okay, this time he was definitely in the room.

_"A ship the size of the_ Finalizer _doesn't have bacta tanks?"_   Kylo wasn't wearing his mask.  Izzy could hear the frustration and anger just barely contained in his voice, closer than Hux's.  If she had to guess, Kylo was sitting and Hux was standing.  It felt strange to think that both were here fussing over her when there were two fugitives and a very important map at large.  Unless it had been found?

_"It's a star destroyer, not a hospital ship."_   Nope.  Not if Hux's defensive tone was any indication.  _"And if we had destroyed the planet to begin with, this would never have happened."_

_"You and destroying planets!  What a phenomenal waste of resources!  And isn't recovering the map and finding Skywalker better than staying in the dark?"_

_"Not if repeated failures bring the map closer to the Resistance with every step!"_

Kylo's lightsaber, the heat.  The droid, _"Sirs, I must require that you leave the patient-"_   It was cut off as the lightsaber slashed through it, electrical work exploding.  Then several tense moments of silence.

Kylo let out a rough noise of frustration as he sheathed his lightsaber.  _"We need a new medic droid in here,"_ he called out to the medical quarters.

Hux cleared his throat, further away.  He must've jumped back when Kylo lashed out, but his voice was lower now.  _"I'm due to leave for Starkiller again.  I'll bring her with me.  Phasma will be with me, too.  We'll see to her."_

If Kylo responded, he made no sound.

Hux's voice hardened again.  _"Perhaps with her in hospital, you'll be able to focus on what the Supreme Leader has asked of you."_

Izzy tried to reach out to Kylo, tried to let him know she wouldn't leave him if she didn't have to, but everything was off through the bacta haze, and she 'missed', if that was what one called poor Force control.  She landed back her memories.  A summer day, the yellow flowers on the town commons in bloom.  The old ladies laughing and chatting as they stitched their sachets.  The scent of sandalwood and rose on the breeze.


End file.
